Kate DiCamillo's Blog, page 29

I keep thinking about my friend Max and how when he was seven years old he got t...

I keep thinking about my friend Max and how when he was seven years old he got to carve his first pumpkin. I was late to the pumpkin-carving party and by the time I arrived, Max was in his room, crying.
“You should go talk to him,” his mother said to me. “He’s got a problem you’ll understand.”
I went upstairs, and this is what Max told me: “The beautiful jack-o-lantern that was in my head is not the jack-o-lantern that I made. I couldn’t get it to turn out right.”
“Oh boy,” I said. “I sure k...

I am just back from a writer’s retreat. My last morning away, I climbed a hill...

I am just back from a writer’s retreat. My last morning away, I climbed a hill and walked a labyrinth. It was snowing. There was a lake below me and woods were around me and the sun was trying to break through the clouds, but I kept my eyes on my feet. At first, I thought: this is silly, walking in a circle like this. And then later, I thought: I’m not getting anywhere at all. But finally I gave myself over to the rhythm of it. I settled into not thinking and not wondering and not worrying; I...

It was bitterly cold on Sunday. A couple of my friends came over to my house....

It was bitterly cold on Sunday. A couple of my friends came over to my house. One of them brought a pie. We made a fire and played Scrabble.
In the evening, I went to a friend’s house for dinner, and there was a fire in the fireplace there, too.
In the morning and in the evening, I sat at a table with people I loved.
There was food and there was laughter.
What I want to say is this: it was cold outside, and I was inside by the fire and there was pie.
What I want to say is this: thank you.

I have received a letter from a seven-year old named Jarrett. His family raises...

I have received a letter from a seven-year old named Jarrett. His family raises pigs, and he is a fan of the Mercy Watson books. He would like for me to know that while he is uncertain if pigs like toast with a great deal of butter, he knows for a fact that they enjoy marshmallows and vanilla wafers.
I love this piece of information, its specificity, its sweetness.
The world is a wondrous place; and the truth (porcine or not) is often better than any fiction.

The Christmas tree came down on Saturday. I miss it. I miss the light of it...

The Christmas tree came down on Saturday.
I miss it. I miss the light of it and the smell of it and the improbability of it (a tree! In the house!).
I miss how when I came around the corner and caught sight of it, I felt like a kid again, convinced of miracles.
I like being convinced of miracles.
Let me always be convinced of miracles.

I was out walking last week, and I was looking down at my feet, trying not to sl...

I was out walking last week, and I was looking down at my feet, trying not to slip on the ice, when a large twig hit me on the shoulder. I looked up and there was a crow in the tree above me. He looked at me and I looked at him and then he started to laugh. I have no doubt that it was laughter. And I also have no doubt that he dropped the twig on purpose.
“Thank you,” I said to him. “Happy New Year.”
He cocked his head from side to side when I spoke to him.
He stretched his wings and then f...

I have vowed several times in the last few years to become a carefree person. T...

I have vowed several times in the last few years to become a carefree person. This intention always provokes paroxysms of laughter in those who know me best.
I am, by nature, a worrier, a pacer. I obsess. I regret. Most of all, I am afraid.
So, for this new year, I have decided to sail my little boat under the flag of the last few lines of D. H. Lawrence’s “Song of a Man Who Has Come Through:”

“What is the knocking?
What is the knocking at the door in the night?
It is somebody who wants to...

I wrote The Tale of Despereaux because my best friend’s son asked me for the sto...

I wrote The Tale of Despereaux because my best friend’s son asked me for the story of an unlikely hero with exceptionally large ears. He was eight years old when he made that request. And now, twelve years later, I am packing a suitcase to attend that boy’s wedding. The words that I have going through my head as I move around the house are these (from Robert Frost’s poem “Birches”):
Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
Happy wedding day, Luke and Mel...

What I wish for you this holiday season: someone standing at a door to greet you...

What I wish for you this holiday season: someone standing at a door to greet you, their face incandescent with joy at the sight of you.
I wish for you to be welcomed in, as you have welcomed me in.

In Penelope Lively’s novel How It All Began, a retired teacher named Charlotte t...

In Penelope Lively’s novel How It All Began, a retired teacher named Charlotte teaches a grown man, an immigrant to London, how to read in English. She begins with Where the Wild Things Are; and as Anton begins to catch on, she gives him Charlotte’s Web. This is how Chapter Five of How It All Began ends: “Later in the Tube, on the way back to the communal house, Anton opened Charlotte’s Web. He sat there in the shuddering, hurtling London netherworld, his lips moving as he traveled from word...